New Pope

Severus has just saved me a lot of typing. Agree wholeheartedly with everything you said. Organised religions are vile organisations and a stain on humanity. We really should have outgrown them by now.

Well said Severus. Unfortunately the religious always inflict their views on others and always the most vulnerable ie children. One of the worstthings this government has allowed are faith schools. Only a small step from the nauseous home schooling.I'm a couple of generations social division will make a once fairly tolerant society not a pleasant place to live. We will not have the all encompassing patriotism of the USA to hold it together.

But the damage was done in 1944. Once the 1944 Education Act allowed for separate faith schools, we were set on a path to this inevitable consequence.

Interestingly, I was taught at college that the wording of the Act that allowed for R.C. and C.o.E. schools was included to ensure that the Welsh non-conformists would support the Act and so get it through parliament. It was obvious to this student 40 years ago that, if R.C. and C.o.E. schools were allowed, all other faiths would eventually demand their own schools.

But the damage was done in 1944. Once the 1944 Education Act allowed for separate faith schools, we were set on a path to this inevitable consequence.

Interestingly, I was taught at college that the wording of the Act that allowed for R.C. and C.o.E. schools was included to ensure that the Welsh non-conformists would support the Act and so get it through parliament. It was obvious to this student 40 years ago that, if R.C. and C.o.E. schools were allowed, all other faiths would eventually demand their own schools.

IMO religion has no place in school. If parents want kids taught religiion then a period should be set aside for them to go to their various places of worship to learn about it - in the same way kids are taken to the baths to learn to swim.

"This is a very wealthy country, money is no object" D. Cameron February 2014

religious education is or should be an important part of the curriculum, although as part of a broader humanities structure.

It is important not to confuse religious education, which is learning about religion and belief. with religious instruction which is indoctrination into it.

Religion is woven into the fabric of history, custom and culture in all sorts of ways. Understanding and having knowledge of what in many ways governs the lives of us and those around us is very important...and interesting.

It's worth pointing out that a number of people, myself included were brought up Catholic, quite strictly too. As is almost inevitable most of my friends and family are Catholic too.

I certainly don't see anything comparable to anti-semitism in the comments, or should I point out any real inaccuracies. The Catholic church lends itself to ridicule by how it acts and what it does. The big difference with anti-semitism is that it is the Church and it's hierarchy that is largely ridiculed whereas Jewish people themselves are targetted with anti-semitism and racially as well, often being characteristics of how they look or how they are perceived to act. The Jewish religion itself or their Rabbis are almost never the focus of the criticism.

But the damage was done in 1944. Once the 1944 Education Act allowed for separate faith schools, we were set on a path to this inevitable consequence.

Interestingly, I was taught at college that the wording of the Act that allowed for R.C. and C.o.E. schools was included to ensure that the Welsh non-conformists would support the Act and so get it through parliament. It was obvious to this student 40 years ago that, if R.C. and C.o.E. schools were allowed, all other faiths would eventually demand their own schools.

the act at the time was seen as a progressive piece of legislation, part of the new world we were about to enter after world war 2.

it gave working class children access to further education in the days before comprehensive schools( a policy enacted by Margaret Thatcher when she was minister of education). The act said that the school day must start with 'an act of corporate worship', a religion based assembly. History overtook it.

When I was at grammar school in the 60s assembly was a hymn, the lords prayer: A bible reading by a prefect,a bollocking from the head about some mass indiiscretion or other, the sports results, and the names of those he wanted to see immediately after assembly(i.e. for the cane or an extra bollocking

I liked singing the hymns, still do, and there was something about the rhythmic incantation of the prayer.

But the world changed leaving the 1944 act behind it, and a good thing too despite its good intentions.

Rugby League both here and in Australasia would by now be long gone and buried but for the social involvement in the early and then continuing 20 c years of the churches , especially the Catholic one,

Wigan St Patricks actually started its life because the priest of the time in Scholes sorted the individual coloured shirts the players had by throwing them into a tub and dying them all the same - black....to make a team....

The current Pope might like R U after all that , especially if people tell him that it's the game that has kept the lower classes in honest sporting endeavour fore all these years

Severus has just saved me a lot of typing. Agree wholeheartedly with everything you said. Organised religions are vile organisations and a stain on humanity. We really should have outgrown them by now.

Except for the Sally Army who do an enormous amount of good in the world.

"This is a very wealthy country, money is no object" D. Cameron February 2014

Good hearted people will do good things. Empathy is no result of religion, it preceeds it. Organisations like the salvation army would exist if religion didn't.

Possibly. Possibly not.

Atheists champion the idea that only religion can make good people do bad things and that good people will do good thinsg anyway. In other words, any good deed linked to religion does not count. It is nice rhetoric, but as most people are a mixture of good and bad and have many different motives (including alturistic love), it is little more.

The religious champion that line that people who believe in nothing can believe in anything. In other words, if you do not have a structure for your morality, then any passing dogma can catch people and there have been a few of those in the C20th. It is basically the same argument with the same words and equally hard to disprove or take seriously.

Neither side are entitiled to have it both ways.

What little difference in morality there does seem to be is that practising Christians take sins of ommission slightly more seriously, Martin Luther King's good men doing nothing. Whether that comes before or after religion is a guess.

I wouldn't say that good deeds from religious don't count or that arheists occupy some moral high ground. I would say that by promoting sexism, homophobia, slavery and genocide that the holy books dont provide very good moral guidance. I also find the absence of any 'command' to not harm children a little worrying but then it does explain a great deal.

"surely they've got to try somthing different now, maybe the little chip over the top?2

Atheists champion the idea that only religion can make good people do bad things and that good people will do good thinsg anyway. In other words, any good deed linked to religion does not count. It is nice rhetoric, but as most people are a mixture of good and bad and have many different motives (including alturistic love), it is little more.

I don't agree with that. I don't think atheist champion that idea that only religion turns good men bad any more than human nature. What it does do is them a platform to do bad. Also a good deed is a good deed whatever the motive. Some religions like to use good deeds to propagate their doctrine whereas others simply preach the merit of doing good.

I don't agree with that. I don't think atheist champion that idea that only religion turns good men bad any more than human nature. What it does do is them a platform to do bad. Also a good deed is a good deed whatever the motive. Some religions like to use good deeds to propagate their doctrine whereas others simply preach the merit of doing good.

Of course, people vary. It is only one positiion on each side. The favourite Dawkins quote which finds favour on this forum is along the lines "for good people to do evil things, that takes religion".

All it really requires for good people to do bad things is for the responsibility to be taken out of their hands. This is why the authority of a uniform or white coat is enough. Many religious people would like to cite religion as the antidote to being easily led by such figures and I think they are equally misguided.